


Trick or Treat (We're Doomed, But in a Good Way)

by southsideglitter



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Flirting, Fluff, Halloween, M/M, Mentions of Underage Sex, Serpents Being Adorable, Underage Drinking, southside serpents, swangs, trick or treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 12:25:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16346699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/southsideglitter/pseuds/southsideglitter
Summary: Thornhill Manor, All Hallow’s Eve. Gothic grandeur made even more so by the Halloween decorations; jack-o-lanterns, cobwebs and candles everywhere. A Hammer Horror soundtrack of screams and eerie organ music, playing from somewhere unseen.Sweet Pea loiters in the foyer, a tone of grudging admiration to his voice as he takes in the scene and mutters to himself thatthis bitch is so extra.“Better not let Toni hear you call her that,” Fangs mumbles, hustling from a corridor Sweets thinks leads to the kitchens, a bundle of items zipped into his Serpent jacket.“You got everything?”Fangs nods. “Right here, dude.”“Come on then, let’s go. Before the lesbians stop us.”Or: a cute Halloween fic where Cheryl and Toni want to party in their couples costume, and Sweet Pea and Fangs want to go trick or treating.





	Trick or Treat (We're Doomed, But in a Good Way)

**Author's Note:**

> FYI: _In my world, Thornhill's been rebuilt, Cheryl and Toni live in happy lesbian opulence, and Fangs and Sweet Pea crash whenever they want._

Thornhill Manor, All Hallow’s Eve. Gothic grandeur made even more so by the Halloween decorations; jack-o-lanterns, cobwebs and candles everywhere. A Hammer Horror soundtrack of screams and eerie organ music, playing from somewhere unseen.

Sweet Pea loiters in the foyer, a tone of grudging admiration to his voice as he takes in the scene and mutters to himself that _this bitch is so extra_.

“Better not let Toni hear you call her that,” Fangs mumbles, hustling from a corridor Sweets thinks leads to the kitchens, a bundle of items zipped into his Serpent jacket.

“You got everything?”

Fangs nods. “Right here, dude.”

“Come on then, let’s go. Before the lesbians stop us.”

They turn towards the door. Make it maybe two steps before the voice comes.

“Stop you from doing what?”

They turn, sheepish and slow, and seem to shrink into their leather skins as they face Toni Topaz in her Harley Quinn outfit, arms crossed and glaring them into submission.

Fangs puts on his most disarming smile. “Nothing?”

It doesn’t work. “Where you do you think you’re going?”

“Nowhere.”

“You are _not_ going trick or treating.”

Sweet Pea leers. “I’d like to see you stop us.”

“That can be arranged,” announces Cheryl, descending the central staircase dressed like Poison Ivy.

Toni grins. “Don’t make her get her bow and arrow.”

“We’ll share our loot,” Sweet Pea promises. “Come on, TT. Free candy and a chance to terrorize Northsiders. What’s not to love?”

“We’re supposed to be going to Veronica’s party. At the speakeasy. Cousin Betty made me promise.”

Fangs pouts. “But we don’t _wanna_ have to wear fancy outfits.”

“Yeah, we wanna eat chocolate and tell ghost stories.”

Cheryl joins her girlfriend, an exasperated look on her face. “You mean to tell me you haven’t even got _costumes_?”

“We got masks.”

“Scream masks are only terrifying in how dated they are. That film came out more than two decades ago, idiots.”

Sweet Pea scowls. “The nineties are back, babe. Even I know that. And besides, FP _loves_ that film. Jughead’s always going on about how it redefined the genre.”

“Whatever. You can’t go to the biggest Halloween bash in Riverdale with just dollar-store masks.”

“They weren’t that cheap.”

“Yeah, I thought they looked good,” Fangs mumbles, more to Sweets than the girls. “In the dark, with flashlights, they could be scary.”

“We could make ‘em scary,” Sweet Pea says, in that voice that contains a silver knife-edge of menace, that voice that gets Northsiders of all genders and sexualities equal parts turned on and terrified, that voice that won’t let anyone forget the switchblade in his pocket, even though the Serpents know he won’t ever use it unless he has to.

Even Fangs gets dreamy when Sweets uses that voice, and his momentary distraction is enough for Cheryl to reach over and peek at what he’s got hidden inside his jacket.

“So why, pray tell, have you been ransacking my pantry for this juvenile endeavour?”

Fangs grins and shows them his haul: flashlights, eggs, toilet paper.  

Toni sighs as the boys snicker. “Babe, you’ve always got the most devilish ideas. What are we gonna we do with them at such short notice?”

Cheryl narrows her eyes and looks them over thoughtfully, but Fangs chimes in before she can speak. “You are _not_ putting me in drag again, Blossom.”

“Oh, hush, you looked incredible last time.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s not the point--”

“Yeah, dude. You looked hot as fuck.”

“I know I did, but-- wait, what?” Fangs turns to Sweet Pea, flustered.

He shrugs, rummaging for a handful of candy corn from a plastic pumpkin on the nearby sideboard. “What? Red’s right. You looked dope. That trashy biker slut look you did on your birthday was a slam dunk.”

“I know you and Toni conspired to get me drunk enough to agree to that.”

Toni and Sweet Pea high five instead of denying it, Cheryl declares her makeover skills to be beyond question, Fangs says the silky underwear and eyeliner were the only outfit components he’d consider wearing again and _that_ image is enough to make Sweet Pea choke on his candy.

 

It’s getting late.

 

Toni and Cheryl get their way, obviously, but only by promising Sweet Pea and Fangs that if they come for an hour they can go and cause chaos afterwards if that’s what they want, and besides, Veronica’s just as extra as Cheryl in her own way, so there’ll probably be candy, and cocktails made to look like blood, and all the goofy Halloween shit that the boys both love.

 

They go to the party.

 

But before that, Cheryl finds some old suits that probably belonged to her dead dad or her weird uncle, styles Sweet Pea and Fangs to look like noir-movie mobsters. Toni questions whether Veronica will appreciate the irony but Cheryl just cackles and says it’s era-appropriate to the speakeasy setting, and _seriously, babe, look at the two of us. Who’s gonna be looking at them, anyway?_

 

Sweet Pea glowers and mumbles that if no-one gonna be looking she should have just let them wear their Scream masks but he shuts up when Toni finds them a dusty bottle of rum to use as a prop and Fangs cracks it open in the car.

 

The speakeasy looks like something from one of those old-fashioned films that Jughead likes, the ones that always used to be on at the drive-in. It’s sophisticated and surreal; art deco aesthetic at odds with Halloween-kitsch skeletons and skulls. Veronica’s dressed as Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, doing that dance with Mantle, who’s got his hair slicked back Travolta-style.

Sweet Pea nudges Fangs when he sees him. “Prick can’t pull off a leather jacket like we can.”

Betty and Jughead are nowhere to be seen. Probably off somewhere sleuthing.

Cheryl and Toni slip away to get drinks or snacks or scissor or whatever lesbian couples do, while Fangs and Sweet Pea drink more rum, then some weird witches’ brew punch with fake eyeballs floating in it that they have to ladle out of a cauldron.

Then they stand against a wall and look menacing, partly for the sake of their costumes and partly because that’s just their habit when they’re somewhere unfamiliar.

 

The next time they see Toni and Cheryl, they’re on the dancefloor, all over each other. Cheryl’s trailing ivy leaves everywhere but she doesn’t seem to care. Sweet Pea elbows Fangs again.

“Look at TT with Red.”

Fangs turns a soft gaze on them, watches for a minute. “What about them?”

“They look so happy.”

Fangs gives a big smiling sigh. “I know.”

“It’s gross,” Sweet Pea smirks, downing the rest of his drink. “But in a good way.”

Fangs chuckles and takes another sip of his blood-and-eyeballs punch. Sweet Pea sees how it’s turning Fangs’ tongue purple and wonders if his is the same.

They watch Blossom and Topaz for another minute or two.

“They deserve it,” Fangs says, after a moment, looking down to swirl his drink in his glass. Sweet Pea wonders whether he’s thinking about Midge, or Kevin, or Joacquin. Maybe one of the others that he’s had things with, or one of the almost-things that never quite happened, or the almost-nothing things that only happen sometimes, between friends, somewhere between night and morning, kisses and tension and teeth in the dark, never acknowledged in daylight. _Kid’s a romantic_ , Sweet Pea thinks. And then, _shit, I’m getting so sentimental, what did Lodge put in this damn drink?_

He nods towards Cheryl and Toni again. “You ever wonder if we’ll have that some day?”

Fangs looks at him. “What, someone to do couples costumes with?”

“I was thinking more the constant sex and validation, but sure.”

“I know we will.”

Sweet Pea quirks his purple-tinged lips into that switchblade smile. “You sound very sure about that.”

Fangs hooks an arm round his shoulders, messes up Sweets’ hair, smacks a kiss on his cheek before his friend can wrestle him off. “I am.”

“You know what I’m sure about?” Sweet Pea asks, a few minutes later.

“What?”

“It’s time to get the hell out of here.”

“Huh?”

“It’s been an hour. This party’s boring. And I wanna get out of this stupid costume.”

Fangs cocks an eyebrow. “I say you keep it on. It suits you.”

“Yeah?”

Fogarty looks him up and down. “Yeah. I’ve never seen you in a suit, apart from funerals.” _Don’t think about those times now,_ Sweets says to himself. “You look _good_.”

Pea ignores the shiver down his spine, blames it on the spooky Halloween soundtrack and gives that that wolfish _I-know-I’m-hot-and-what-motherfucker_ grin. “You too, dude.”

They fist-bump, snickering, in recognition of their mutual gorgeousness, and then start making plans.

“Probably too late for trick or treating now. Horror films back at Blossom’s haunted house?”

“Sounds like a plan. Let’s get some more snacks before we go though.”

They raid the candy collection, steal the keys from Toni’s purse and slip off into the night, giving it some gangster swagger just to make each other laugh.

 

Back at Thornhill, they find another bottle of rum, stoke the fire and settle down to watch the Scream trilogy. ( _Jughead says the fourth one doesn’t count.)_

Fangs is asleep with his head in Pea’s lap by the time the front door’s unlocked.

He puts his Scream mask on but he can’t hide without disturbing Fangs so he just sits there in the almost-dark, lit by the flickering TV.

Toni comes in and calls him an asshole, then stands there with her hands on her hips. “What the hell happened to you two?”

Sweets shrugs. “Bailed. You said we could.”

“But you missed the seance! And Betty turned up as her BDSM alter-ego with Jughead on a leash and then went full psycho on some loser who came as the Black Hood.”

“Sounds boring.”

Cheryl comes in to say she’s not running a home for waifs and strays, but there’s no teeth to it because Sweet Pea’s heard this speech a million times before and Red’s never yet turned them away. Sometimes she even makes breakfast, although he suspects that has more to do with the way Toni goes crazy at the sight of Blossom in an apron than any desire to be a good hostess.

He keeps his Scream mask on and his arm round Fangs’ shoulders as they attempt to impart more Halloween gossip, until Cheryl gets bored and starts casting longing looks at Toni in her Harley Quinn hotpants.

“Right, Serpent children, we’re retiring to my boudoir. Don’t stay up too late.”

“Night, Mom One. Night, Mom Two.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Toni snaps, laughing, as Cheryl drags her out of the room by her hand.

“Love you! Go to bed now!”

 

Fangs stirs as they make their way upstairs.

“What was that?” he asks, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“TT and Red getting in. Probably gonna go and do some kinky comic-book-character roleplay now.”

“Lucky bitches.”

“I know,” Sweet Pea says. “Gross.”

“But in a good way.”

“Yeah.”

Fangs snuggles closer. "Thanks for doing Halloween with me, Pea.”

“You too, Fogarty.”

“You’re gonna need to take that mask off, though.”

“Why?”

“Cos I wanna see your face.”

“Why?” Pea asks again, but he slips it over his head anyway.

“To make sure you’re not a serial killer.”

“I could have already got you a million times while you were asleep.”

“Whatever, we’re already doomed anyway.” The rules from Scream say don’t do drugs, drink or have sex if you don’t wanna die. They already discussed it: how _it’s too late for us,_ and _we better live it up while we still can_. “I just feel better when I can see your face.”

“Thanks,” Pea deadpans, but he knows Fangs is telling the truth.

 

“I had an idea,” Fogarty says, a minute later, shifting on the couch to face Pea properly. “While I was asleep.”

“So a dream.”

“Fine, then. A dream. About us.”

Sweet Pea leers. “Another one?”

Fangs scowls but doesn’t blush. “You promised you wouldn’t make me regret telling you that.”

Sweets stretches, looking smug. “Whatever. I’m sure everyone dirty dreams about me. Nothing to be ashamed about.”

Fangs straight up ignores this. Sweet Pea can’t really blame him.

“So, my idea,” Fangs continues. “Next year, we’re doing a couples costume too. No one will expect it. That’s what will make it so brilliant.”

“Even though we’re not a couple?”

They stare at each other a beat too long. Sweets licks his purple-stained lips.

“Even so,” Fangs replies.

“Alright,” says Pea with a smirk, playing along. “And what’s that gonna be?”

Fangs looks him up and down once more, and Sweet Pea decides that _this fucker’s definitely flirting_  as Fogarty tells him: “You gotta wear a suit again. That’s a look too good to not be repeated.”

“Fine. But only if you wear a dress.”

Fangs rolls his eyes but he’s grinning too, he can’t help it. “Kinky bastard.”

“You love it.”

“Gross,” says Fangs, but he’s leaning in, cocking an eyebrow like a challenge.

“In a good way?” Sweets asks. He knows the answer already but he wants to hear Fangs say it. Almost like he’s asking something else altogether.  

“Yeah.”

 

Onscreen, there’s blood and gore everywhere. On the couch, stained, candy-sticky lips nudge together, softly at first and then more intense _. Next year_ , Sweet Pea thinks hazily, his tongue in Fangs’ mouth, hands moving everywhere he can reach. _That’s a long way away_. But he likes the idea of promises, of a future, of being alive and okay, with Fangs in some way, any way, no matter what.

 

And then Fangs pulls back, buries his face in the crook of Pea’s neck, kissing him where his skin’s sensitive, and Sweet Pea growls, low in his throat, thinking _fuck it, we’re doomed anyway. Better live it up while we still can_.

 

And later, somewhere between night and morning, when it’s kisses and tension and teeth in the dark, _this is way better than trick or treating_.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are life, lovelies. Find me @southsideglitter on Tumblr if that's your thing. Happy Halloween!


End file.
